Abstract:
The Building Industry places a high demand on world’s resources and there by impacting the
environment. Currently Engineers are paying attention to sustainability based design concepts rather than
traditional cost effective design concepts for buildings. In US there are about seventy five million residential
buildings as opposed to mere five million commercial buildings. As such this paper addresses residential
buildings as opposed to commercial buildings. In US there are several metrics to measure eco friendliness for
homes. Three such systems are National Association of Home Builders Model Green Building (MGB)
Guidelines, National Association of Home Builders Green Building Standard (ICC 700-2008) and United States
Green Building Council’s LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design). The Model green building
guidelines address, seven criterions, lot design, resource/water/energy efficiency, indoor environmental quality,
homeowner education, and global impact in determining sustainability. The ICC 700 uses very similar six
criterions, lot design, resource/energy/water efficiencies, indoor environmental quality, operation, maintenance,
and building owner education. The LEED recognizes sustainability with eight criterions of Innovative design
process, location and linkage, sustainable sites, water efficiency, energy efficiency, materials selection , indoor
environmental quality, and awareness and education. This paper discusses two rating systems used in US for eco
friendly building design for homes with special emphasis on effects of energy efficiency in rating values. For
energy efficiency requirements of International Energy Conservation Code is also addressed. Using a new home
in California as an example the paper describes how to evaluate green building ratings for energy efficiency
using three software tools for the MGB and GBS for homes in US.
